Posted on 08/15/2022 11:43:31 PM PDT by Libloather
While you might have cracked open a cold one to enjoy Saturday’s preseason football game, the U.S. is experiencing a shortage of carbon dioxide, which produces all that fizz and bubbly in the beer.
Issues with contamination and a train line strike have impacted the carbon dioxide supply around the country. Many local breweries said they're monitoring the situation, thankful that their supplies haven’t fizzled out just yet.
While some breweries are worried about production, others are turning to greener methods to help.
Lone Oak Farm Brewing Company in Olney, Maryland, is one business using alternative methods to prevent products from going flat.
**SNIP**
In addition to using what’s created through fermentation, Lone Oak Farm is reusing the carbon dioxide from the finished beer.
The brewmaster said they use a blend of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in the beer that’s served in the tap room.
“When something is super carbonated, it's like a soda that almost burns the back of your throat. Nitrogen helps mellow that out a little bit and makes it a unique blend,” Chris Miller said.
Lone Oak Farm said its alternative methods are more environmentally friendly. The brewery goes “ground to glass” - growing its own barley and malting it on site.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcwashington.com ...
The big industrial brewers want efficiency and speed.
Natural fermentation in the bottle takes extra handling, storage space (Lager means “to store” in German) and time. Beer will will taste pretty green for at least a couple weeks while the little yeasties do their thing. This continues for a long time, I’ve naturally carbonated beers that are over a year old and they taste fantastic.
Comtamination with outside yeasts or bacteria, or overdosing on the “priming” means exploding bottles, too. I can see where Beer makers and vendors don’t want to mess with that. At all.
Homebrewers don’t want to mess with bottle carbonation either. It adds considerable expense, but by racking to a Keg, and force carbonating, they are ready to go much sooner.
Typically a 5 gallon batch needs 40 or 50 bottles and usually makes a bit of a mess no matter how careful. Bottles need to be cleaned and sanitized, stored correctly, caps, etc. Old soda kegs and sankeys are in demand, etc.
Its called Krausening
Adding small bit of wort (unfermented beer) to the beer
As it ferments creates CO2 to give it its fizz
Problem is takes time , modern brewers are in too much of hurry to push their swill out the door use bottled CO2 to the beer
Its called Krausening
Adding small bit of wort (unfermented beer) to the beer
As it ferments creates CO2 to give it its fizz
Problem is takes time , modern brewers are in too much of hurry to push their swill out the door use bottled CO2 to the beer
Yes, but I see Belgian, Czech and German beer makers follow only the natural method and their beers are so much better
So am I. But Coors and bud light taste like nothing, so I’m not surprised they do it
Eh, not necessarily.
They are very particular about their beers for sure, but bottle conditioning is not really the norm, I don’t believe it would be the majority or even close.
I know for example Hefe Weissen is really popular in Bavaria, about 30% of the beer sold in the country. The bottled Hefe’s are conditioned by a specialty yeast different than the strain used in fermentation. But they have to be stored for a few weeks before they are ready to ship.
They sell a lot of it on tap, and I think that has to be carbonated artificially.
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